![\"calvin](\"http:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/09\/calvinknowledge.jpg\")
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I didn\u2019t really touch on it in depth in my theology post<\/a> last week but my view of theology entails being able to give reasons for why one asserts what one asserts. The emphasis then was in how we read. Underneath it all really was Eco\u2019s view of the ideal reader who pays close attention to the process of interpretation. That reader is an ideal reader because they can explain why they read the way they do.<\/p>\n It was with some interest then that I read the inaugural post at Patheos\u2019 new blog, Mormonism Inside and Out with Patrick Mason and John Dehlin.[1] They started out with the whole topic of epistemology<\/a> or how we know. It turns out one of the several half finished posts I have planned engaged deeply on these issues. Rather than going through my thoughts on epistemology I thought I\u2019d respond to a few of the issues they brought up in their discussion.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n The discussion really starts with a\u00a0common critiques of religious experience from John Dehlin.<\/p>\n From a non-believing perspective \u2014 and I will admit up-front that this is a very fraught over-simplification \u2014 believers seem to base their positions on \u201cspiritual experiences,\u201d which non-believers would likely describe as emotional experiences, while non-believers often view themselves as basing their positions more on facts\/evidence, maybe with a little bit of emotion thrown in.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n First there\u2019s the whole issue of what constitutes a spiritual or religious experience. The term is exceedingly vague and seems to include pretty diverse experiences and claims. After all someone encountering an angel might be a spiritual experience but so too might be a particular burning and feeling of confidence when a topic is thought about. And a simple emotional experience when singing a hymn might be termed a spiritual\u00a0experience as well. Yet I\u2019m not sure any of these\u00a0really are similar epistemologically. Put an other way, I\u2019ve long thought that talking about religious experience is unhelpful unless we\u2019re more specific about what we mean. But of course that\u2019s difficult when talking about other people\u2019s spiritual experiences. They rarely will go into detail over them with others. Further many people just aren\u2019t used to the careful self-reflexive analysis that would let us figure out what they\u2019re really doing. At best we can discuss what a smaller class of \u2018intellectuals\u2019 might defend as experiences.<\/p>\n This problem of the overly broad category of “religious experience” is why critics can raise the problem of how we can appeal to religious experiences if people come to different conclusions. The problem can be seen if we just remove the religious modifier. How can we appeal to experience if people come to different conclusions from experience?\u00a0Yet while we’d never say that any experience can ground anything we’d also not discount experience as providing a ground for knowledge. In the same way while not any old religious experience necessarily grounds knowledge neither does it mean no religious experience can ground knowledge.<\/p>\n Critics are apt to dismiss such experiences as \u201cmere emotion.\u201d While I think that\u2019s problematic for emotional responses in general[2] it\u2019s really problematic I think for many people\u2019s religious experiences where the important content seems to non-emotional. John notes that the emotion move is an oversimplification but I think it\u2019s important to note that \u201cemotion\u201d really does avoid many aspects of the central experience.<\/p>\n Their discussion then took an interesting turn, given recent discussions of Taylor\u2019s A Secular Age<\/em>\u00a0by Rachel<\/a> here at T&S.\u00a0John asks, “to what extent do you embrace secularism as a foundation of your Mormon epistemology?” He doesn’t think many would accept secularism at all. Again I’m not sure this establishes much. First because it’s not clear what is meant by secularism. (A point John seems to recognize when he later mentions how it’s typically used in a pejorative sense in most LDS conversations) I think in the broader, more careful sense of secular (as opposed to the loose sense of “with religion removed”) things get a bit more complicated. Although\u00a0I must confess that even after reading Taylor and participating in the discussions here at T&S I have a hard time wrapping my mind around the question. I’m not sure I’m really able to answer it ultimately. Perhaps that\u2019s because I think through my religion in a thoroughly secular fashion relative to medieval conceptions<\/em>. Put an other way nothing about religion that I can think of really are in massive tension with my more secular commitments to science and general inquiry. This isn’t a secularism in\u00a0opposition<\/em> to religion but just a general way of engaging with the world that I think is as open to religion as it is science.<\/p>\n John raises the question of whether upon encountering a new religion akin to Joseph Smith and the controversial aspects of Mormon history in Nauvoo that I \u201cwould not take this person seriously for a second.\u201d But of course that\u2019s a bit of an odd question because it avoids the starting place I begin my inquiry. Anything I say to that seems false because I can at best provide paper doubt. After all I really do think Joseph was a prophet. To be able to engage in the thought experiment John offers requires me to somehow not already believe what I believe. I can at best say, is it conceivable that God would give me justifiable reasons to believe? I think it\u2019s possible even for things that at present I don\u2019t believe. The problem with approaching the problem in this fashion is that it involves paper doubt[3] rather than things I\u2019d really doubt or believe. As a believer I’d have to say it’s quite plausible that I’d encounter such a person and believe. The key thing seems to be I wouldn’t believe just based upon what John says about the man and his religion. Something has been left out. That something seems pretty important.<\/p>\n Patrick starts\u00a0off a rejoinder to John talking about how secular thinking is in the air we breath and fully part of how we think. I really liked that part and think it true. However he loses me when he says,<\/p>\n Now, do I have to use a different part of my brain when I open myself up to non-rational, non-verifiable religious claims and experiences? Yes.\u00a0But as I said earlier, I think that\u2019s part of what makes us human \u2014 authentically encountering a world of wonders, from love to poetry to religious mystery, that requires us to approach reality in a different way.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n My complaint is that I just don\u2019t see that my religious thinking in fundamentally different from how I think about everything else.<\/p>\n From what I can tell Mormons think the light of Christ is given to everyone, so I think it a defensible position that what underlies religious experiences is part and parcel of all thinking. Is the scientist with the flash of insight that makes them yell \u201cEureka!\u201d really doing something fundamentally different from the religious believer who has a similar experience on a religious topic? It seems a common LDS belief that God is inspiring people ranging from the founders preparing the Constitution to discovering the printing press to a lot of scientific inquiry. It\u2019s perhaps unsurprising that at least some secular scientists have similar views. The noted physicist Paul Davies wrote about how \u201csome scientists and mathematicians claim to have had sudden revelatory insights akin to\u2026mystical experiences. Roger Penrose describes mathematical inspirations as a sudden \u2018breaking through\u2019 into a Platonic realm. Rucker reports that Kurt G\u00f6del also spoke of the \u2018other relation to reality,\u2019 by which he could directly perceive mathematical objects\u2026\u201d (Davies, 228)<\/p>\n I don\u2019t want to say Davies or his examples necessarily establish much beyond perhaps showing the lines between the revelatory and secular are more blurry than they first appear. Even if we think Davies, Penrose or G\u00f6del wrong, clearly they demonstrate that there’s a wider range of views than some portray.<\/p>\n From a Mormon perspective a person can easily be inspired without knowing at the time they were inspired. I certainly have had experiences where when looking back it seems like I was being guided in ways I wasn\u2019t aware at the time. Put an other way, the interesting part of the LDS conception of revelation is that we don\u2019t need know what is or isn\u2019t revelatory in a clear way. (Although of course we may in certain cases<\/em>\u00a0be aware of what is revelation – although even then I think one can always second guess oneself) So just as perhaps reason and emotion are quite as separable as sometimes thought, I think revelation and empirical reasoning also aren’t necessarily as separable. That is, we have to distinguish between how we\u00a0justify to others<\/em> an idea and how we\u00a0come to believe<\/em>. How\u00a0G\u00f6del thinks he experiences mathematics simply isn’t the same as the proofs he presents in his papers. Again he may well be wrong but I think that distinction between why we believe and how we defend a belief must be kept always in mind.<\/p>\n I also think one can be fairly empirical or pragmatic as one conducts ones religious inquiry. To the degree revelation is a real phenomena then it’s effects must make a difference to be a difference. And that difference as a difference must be\u00a0at least reasonably empirical. It might not be\u00a0public<\/em>, which is an other matter entirely. But I think I stick with my view that separating religious experience as a difference in kind from regular experience is just wrong.<\/p>\n All of this is to argue against Patrick that I don\u2019t think one really is doing<\/em> anything necessarily<\/em>\u00a0different in religious experiences. Part of this again is the blurriness in our categories though. If we can\u2019t make clear what distinctions are important then I\u2019m not sure we can say much. I just remain far from convinced that the topic of religion<\/em>\u00a0is a significant difference.<\/p>\n I\u2019m actually quite sympathetic to John\u2019s final rejoinder to Patrick. He says, “a huge part of my personal downfall with regards to the LDS church was in never being able to\u00a0personally replicate<\/b>\u00a0any of the wonderful storie or miracles that I heard about at church. \u00a0If God was willing to appear to Joseph Smith, why couldn\u2019t he appear to me?” (emphasis in the original)<\/p>\n In a certain sense it is replication<\/em>\u00a0that matters the most. Where I differ with John is over what has to be replicated. I don\u2019t think I need see the angel Moroni to know that Moroni visited Joseph. In the same way, I don’t have to experience mathematics the way G\u00f6del did to know a mathematical theorem is true. Rather there are things I can replicate and build conclusions out of certain\u00a0experiences (whether they be symbolic, mathematical or religious).<\/p>\n Ultimately I think one can come to know God without losing ones critical stance. That is, it seems to me the real question for Patrick and John isn\u2019t how the typical person comes to believe in God but how people like they are can come to believe in God. The most interesting question of epistemology is less about the Church in general but how those reading this (whom I assume are all critical thinkers) can justify their beliefs.<\/p>\n Davies, Paul Mind of God<\/em>. Simon & Schuster 1992.<\/p>\n [1] I\u2019m assuming most readers are familiar with John Dehlin who is a bit of a controversial figure. I had actually thought this joint effort was going to be a podcast, not a blog. I think a blog is actually better since they have a time to think through questions and look up answers. Apparently Patheos first approached Dan Peterson<\/a> as the second figure to John Dehlin. Given the tensions between them that would really have been quite interesting. Given the past it\u2019s probably not surprising Dan Peterson turned it down. While I\u2019m sure many were a bit surprised Patrick Mason took up the role I am quite curious to see how he responds to Dehlin.<\/p>\n [2] Cognitively it\u2019s fair to say that emotions are frequently a shortcut kind of judgment and response the brain uses. Strong emotions are often tied to important situations such as trauma or love. To dismiss emotions epistemologically thus seems deeply problematic given modern psychology and cognitive science. Emotions came to be disparaged in epistemology primarily due to certain trends in philosophy in early modernism. Emotion and reason were often opposed such that reason was seen as being \u201cdispassionate.\u201d (A trend that arguably goes back at least to the Stoics) Without descending into the deep hole of the philosophy and cognitive science of emotions<\/a> I\u2019d just say things are more complex than they appear<\/a> at first glance.<\/p>\n [3] The term “paper doubt” comes from the philosopher C. S. Peirce who used it for people still using the Cartesian method of doubt to find out what was true. Descartes felt like there were basic beliefs we couldn\u2019t doubt out of which all justified beliefs could be built – so his process was to doubt everything one could. The problem is that the things we say we doubt and the things we actually doubt typically aren\u2019t the same. I might think up a thought experiment where I\u2019m actually a brain in a vat hooked into the Matrix but really I just can\u2019t make myself believe that.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" I didn\u2019t really touch on it in depth in my theology post last week but my view of theology entails being able to give reasons for why one asserts what one asserts. The emphasis then was in how we read. Underneath it all really was Eco\u2019s view of the ideal reader who pays close attention to the process of interpretation. That reader is an ideal reader because they can explain why they read the way they do. It was with some interest then that I read the inaugural post at Patheos\u2019 new blog, Mormonism Inside and Out with Patrick Mason and John Dehlin.[1] They started out with the whole topic of epistemology or how we know. It turns out one of the several half finished posts I have planned engaged deeply on these issues. Rather than going through my thoughts on epistemology I thought I\u2019d respond to a few of the issues they brought up in their discussion.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":43,"featured_media":35781,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[20],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-35768","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-philosophy-and-theology"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/09\/calvinknowledge.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35768","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/43"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=35768"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35768\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":35782,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35768\/revisions\/35782"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/35781"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=35768"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=35768"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=35768"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}